All species › Tubenoses › Petrels and shearwaters › Flesh-Footed Shearwater
Flesh-Footed Shearwater | Ardenna carneipes
Australische grote pijlstormvogel | Pardela paticlara
A large, all-dark shearwater with a pale bill and strikingly pale legs, breeding in Australia and New Zealand and visiting the Arabian Sea in the northern summer. Off Oman it is then the most frequently seen dark shearwater.
Voice
Silent at sea. At the colony at night a long, moaning and hiccuping ku-koo-ah.
Recording: Barry Edmonston — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Large and heavily built, with broad wings and a short, rounded tail. All dark chocolate-brown; against the light the bases of the primaries look slightly silvery below. The bill is thick and pale pink or flesh-coloured with a clear black tip; the legs and feet are flesh-coloured and sometimes just project below the tail in flight. Flies low, with slow, powerful beats and long glides on stiff, straight wings; sometimes follows ships and fishing boats.
Confusion species
Dark Wedge-tailed Shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) is slimmer, with a longer, pointed tail, a thinner greyish bill, darker legs and a lighter, floating flight. Sooty Shearwater (Ardenna grisea) has a black bill, silvery underwing coverts and a faster, stiffer flight. Jouanin’s Petrel (Bulweria fallax) is much smaller, with a short black bill. Young skuas have white wing flashes.
Habitat
Open sea, especially over the continental shelf and in upwelling areas during the summer monsoon; feeds at the surface and in shallow dives for fish and squid. Breeds in burrows in wooded or vegetated ground on islands.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
In the region a regular non-breeding visitor to the Arabian Sea: fairly common in Oman off Dhofar, Masirah and the east coast, with most sightings from May to September. In the Gulf of Oman off the east coast of the Emirates annual in small numbers from April to October, most numerous from May to August (up to 35 on one boat trip). Also to be expected around Socotra and in the Gulf of Aden, although counts are few; not in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. Beyond the region it breeds in south-western Australia, on Lord Howe and in northern New Zealand, migrating outside the breeding season to the northern Indian Ocean and the northern Pacific.
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Pelagic trips during the summer monsoon off Dhofar and from Muscat, or in May and June from Fujairah and Dibba, often produce several birds. From the shore at Ras al-Hadd and Masirah they can be seen in onshore winds.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The population is declining through longline bycatch, plastic ingestion and rats and cats at colonies. In the region it is a regular visitor at sea; as far as is known, bycatch in the Arabian Sea plays a role.
Scientific name
Ardenna carneipes | (Gould, 1844) (GBIF: Puffinus carneipes)
Gould described the species in 1844 as Puffinus carneipes; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ardenna was introduced in 1853 by Reichenbach. Ardenna goes back to Artenna, the spelling the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi used for a seabird in 1603 and which Reichenbach cited when naming the genus. carneipes comes from the Latin carneus, 'flesh-coloured', and pes, 'foot' — for the pink feet. The specimen the first description was based on came from Small islands off Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia.